Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire horses

there are horses, then there are horses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRscujkPxU

Impressive.

Very cool.

Powerful and noble animals indeed.

Once attended a competition with light, middle, and heavy weight teams. A lightweight team that seemed to have hauling down to a science took first in the light and middle weights, and placed second in the heavies.

A real pleasure to watch, but I hate to see them pushed to their absolute limits.

Earning the oats.

I know next to nothing about horses so this is probably a naive question, but is pulling something horses like to do? Or is there some bond there such that they'll willingly do what their human wants? I know some will reach back and try to bite you if they don't like you or what you're doing.

Dogs will go all out for you but obviously enjoy it, witness most hunting dogs when the human pulls out the shotgun or whatever the dog associates with being in the field. Same with those long jump contests, many of them are wagging their whole bodies in anticipation at going after the throw dummy and seem to be saying, "is that all you got for me? C'mon, I can do more!"

It's not so much the size of the horse as it is the size of the heart.

"Like" might be a strong term, but I think you have hit the answer in the second part.



I've seen this more than not, with horses and horse people. That one horse will bond with you, do/try anything you ask, and look for little in return. I rode pick-up man for my Dad's rodeo company, my horse would take a kick, a shoulder, a bite, and never move away from the source unless I let him. He knew what I wanted, we trusted each other, and we got along well. I didn't dominate him, but he knew I was in charge, and I was going to get after him if he balked.

I grew up around Potlatch, old horse loggers were everywhere from the height of the timber boom in the north Idaho forests. They all knew each other, helped each other, fought each other, and shared the hardships together of the early days.

Can't tell you how horse teams I saw that would blow their heart out on a heavy pull for a known team driver, and yet, can't get out of their own shadow for somebody they didn't know, or didn't trust.

I can remember going with my Granddad, and his two horse team, and meeting a number of the other loggers with their horse teams at the local gymkhana grounds and running a horse pull on a Saturday night. Local teams competing, winner take all, and few brown bottles on the side with some wagers to keep it interesting.

Sandpoint Idaho has the "IDAHO STATE DRAFT HORSE & MULE INTERNATIONAL SHOW" every Fall, with pulls, team-driving events, and pageantry of the buggys. Well worth the price of admission if you are in the area.

Good post!

Never was a 'hoss
Like Tennessee Stud.
..just sayin'

Hay burners

horses are as individual as people are. I have known a number of horses that would follow you around like a big dog.
we were at an outdoor buffet in chino valley at a relatives.
One of the girls kep tieing up her horse to a fence. He would promptly untie himself and walk over and get in the line at the buffet table, he was eying all the veggies. He did that a couple of times. I would feel something bumping me in the back, and it was his nose as if to say hurry up.

This one always baffled me. Have to watch to the end. miles Queen Mothers horse falls

Something majestic about these big working draft horses. I've seen the Budweiser Clydesdales many times. So cool to watch.

Dogs are cool and all. And I have been quite attached to a few. But dogs got nothing on a good horse.

The end of True Grit, where Little Blackie dies always chokes me up, only because I have known a few horses which would given their all for me, had I needed one of them to.

I drove a team to feed with a few decades ago. It was two geldings, full brothers, one year apart. One horse was a couple hundred pounds heavier but pulled about 80% of the load. One Democrat and one Republican on the team.

Don't know if they like to pull or not, but they are willing.

Little blackie always choked me up too. I was never into ranching, but extended family and my dad sure were.
He was born in flagstaff az in 19 02. Said his father got around in a buckboard and two mules. He remembered when the first car came to flagstaff, scared the bejeebers out of the horse. the first round up i went on was in real tough country. That dang horse was like a mountain goat, and seemed to like chasing those cows down.

Very impressive animals.

Local guy here has 4 of them and shows them at the annual steam and gas show, they put their heads down and grunt like a locomotive!

One of my uncles had a matched pare of bay gelding shetlands through the 90's.

Called them the Mini Mites. He competed annualy at the Idaho State Fair for many years. And every year won the pulling contest, because it was judged as weight pulled divided by team weight.

Pound for pound, those shetlands would outpull all those clydesdales, percherons, and belgians.

I was never around many Shetlands, but they were all mean. Probably just spoiled, but I did not own them, just around a little. miles